Clearing Collapsed Walkway at Formby - 26th September 2021

 

Three of us made the journey to Formby on 26^th September to clear a collapsed walkway to the beach, it was a beautiful sunny day with blue skies and hardly a cloud in the sky.

When we arrived the walkway was completely impassable with the side walls collapsed and there was no easy way to clear this than to shovel out the sand by hand.  

We had a small dumper truck that could be used to transport the sand from one place to another. 

Formby had a few rangers and volunteers helping so we split into two groups and one group shovelled sand into wheelbarrows and dumped the sand back on the beach.  The second smaller group shovelled sand into the dumper truck and this was tipped further up the sand dunes.

During the day we had the added excitement of TV crews filming the final of a reality TV drama and got to see helicopters circling and landing numerous times.

It was such a lovely day, it was hard back breaking work but well worth it in the end.  The rangers will repair the side walls before the walkway can be re-opened to the public.

Cleared Walkway

Group Photo

                

Lyme Park workday on Sunday 19th September

Twelve of us met Issy, one of the Lyme Rangers, in the main car park at Lyme Park at 9.30am today.

As we were working towards to far end of West Drive, most of us moved our cars to the car park nearest to where we'd be working and walked down West Drive, noticing that Contractors had been in to cut down the Ash tree's due to Ash die-back.

Whilst the big trunks and branches of the Ash would need a chain-saw to further cut them down, the smaller branches, twigs and leaves had fallen into the river that ran along the length of West Drive, blocking it so the water couldn't flow properly. The concern was that, once the heavy rains came, all this debris would be washed further downstream into the gardens of Lyme's neighbours causing blockages and floods. Our task today was to clear as much of this debris as possible, burn what we could and the smaller bits could be piled up on the other side of the path into habitat piles, behind the fencing or where the brambles would grow through it, making it stable when the rain came, so it didn't wash away.

Andy started the fire, and a few of us stayed near it so we could cut down the branches that we being retrieved from the steam and brought up West Drive, to load onto the fire and get it going properly. 

Carrying the debris up West Drive to the fire site.

The weather was kind to us - although showers had been forecast, they had finished before we arrived at Lyme and we had good weather while we were there. Lots of people walked past us while we were working and stopped for a chat, which was great.

After lunch, when we'd cleared up one stretch of the steam, we moved further down the Drive and started on another area.

Before we started...... 

......during.....

....and after:-)

We let the fire die down a bit and cleared as much as we could before we finished around 3pm, gathering our tools, and walking uphill back to our cars!

It was a really satisfying day, particularly being able to see the difference we'd made:-)

Thanks to Christine and Adrian for the photos.

Workday at Hayfield on Sunday 12th September 2021

Workday cancelled.

Sadly, not enough of us were available to do the task required.

Rhodybashing at Dunham Massey on Sunday 5th September 2021

Record numbers at Dunham Massey

A spectacular turnout but one gets lost!

Starring: Abbey, Adrian, Ally (Myself), Andy H, Andy S, Anna, Christine, Daniel, David, Esther, Jenny, Neil, Tim L, Simon, Valentina and introducing MNTV Newbie Olly

 

Guest starring: Ranger Nat

 

With plans to travel to Snowdonia in place, Daniel and I were ready to welcome the group back to Weekends but when the weekend was advertised and with people still hesitant about travelling and sharing dorms we cancelled the weekend.  As I had the time off work anyway I made a guest appearance at the rearranged workday at Dunham Massey.  Although the team in Snowdonia were disappointed about not seeing us, they understood and I promised we would be back soon.

We were last at Dunham in November 2020 when Craig Buckley from Styal was in charge.  We had had lots of visits there so when he was seconded back to Styal I didn't hold up much hope of us returning to Dunham in the near future, but little did I know that with a new Ranger in town the call would come through sooner than I thought, so when Snowdonia was cancelled Dunham was my go to property to replace it.  That new Ranger is Nat from Hardcastle Crags and she was looking forward to seeing us again and we were looking forward to getting back to Dunham.

In the run up to the day the replies to Daniel's email about the workday just kept flooding in until we had 16 volunteers signed up, the most we have had in a long time.  The day started bright and warm, we met in the carpark at Dunham at 9.30 and introduced everyone as we had relatively new people, old timers and one who just makes surprise appearances.  Those who had worked for 50+hours between March 2020 and March 2021 got given their Volunteer Cards and then we set off for the clock tower to meet Nat at 9.45.  Our task for the day was rhodybashing in a plantation that had previously been fenced off to avoid deer damage, near the outer reaches of the park.  We put the tools and cake into Nat's truck and walked to the worksite. Once there Nat gave us a tool talk and told us about our task which was to pull out the plants or chop down the rhody to knee height so that in future it could be winched out.  We toiled all morning - some were tasked with exposing trees that had been engulfed by bracken, the rest of us sawed, lopped and pulled at the rhody.  At coffee time we enjoyed Daniel's delicious Chocolate Cake and Jenny’s tasty Bakewell Tart.

After break we went back to our tasks adding in picking up discarded tree guards.  By lunchtime we had finished the tree extraction and rhody chopping.  Lunch was called and Neil was nowhere to be seen after many shouts of "Neil" and "Neil, Lunch" Daniel called him on his mobile to let him know it was lunch time.  He had been so busy extracting trees from the bracken that apparently he had got lost!  He appeared a short time later and joined us.  Nat went back to the yard to pick up some bin bags for our tree guard task and eat her lunch and whilst she was away Daniel and I presented four 5-Year and one 10-Year Long Service Awards to members of the group.  Congratulations to all recipients!

After lunch we carried on picking up discarded tree guards within the plantation we had been working on and plantations close by and added to our list of tasks for the day.  This task had been started before lunch with just one bag.

Once some of us had stepped in the bog in the ditch, up to our knees, and picked up lots of bits of tree guards with bin bag in hand, in pairs, we headed in the direction of Nat's truck.  Some had gone that direction earlier than others when Olly and I appeared back at the lunch spot it was just Jenny and Andy S waiting for us and others to let us know it was time to move on.  We put our ten bags of tree guards in the back of Nat's truck and the group that had got there earlier made sure all the young trees in the area were not swamped by bracken.

By now it was mid-afternoon and it was a little too hot to do any more work so Nat offered a visit to the Gardens.  Some of the group accepted and some didn't.  As we walked back in the direction of the garden we could see the park was quite busy with lots of day trippers.  Once at the Garden gate we had a group picture in front of the mansion and we picked up the tools that Nat dropped there.

Those who were going to the garden entered, those who didn't headed to the car park with the tools to be put in Daniel's car.  Jenny and I changed our shoes and then headed for an ice cream using my newly received and signed volunteer card.  I had Raspberry Ripple and Jenny had Strawberry - it was just what was needed after a hot day in the sunshine.

It's Monday now, the weather looked pretty dreich over the Cumbrian Fells as I headed north on the train home, but as the bus from Edinburgh came off the A1 the sun made a brief appearance just as I was getting home.

It was great to see you all and I look forward to seeing you again soon.

Ally